Two jailed in Crooked River Ranch kidnap, assault ordeal

A Crooked River Ranch woman and a California man were arrested in a guns-drawn traffic stop in northwest Bend Friday afternoon, accused of kidnapping, binding, assaulting and threatening to kill the woman’s two housemates in a two-day, two-county ordeal, Deschutes County sheriff’s deputies said Saturday.

Around 3:40 p.m. Friday, deputies were dispatched to the Sisters Chevron Mainline Station, a gas station and convenience store, on a reported kidnapping, said Lt. Chad Davis.

Kitera Westover and Damian Patteeuw, both 23 and of Crooked River Ranch, said they were victims of a kidnapping and had just been released by two suspects driving in a gold 2002 Ford Expedition, Davis said. They were last seen heading east on Highway 20 from Sisters.

An Oregon State Police trooper found the SUV on Highway 20 in Tumalo and, with deputies’ help, conducted a high-risk traffic stop on O.B. Riley Road near Hardy Lane.

Suspects Alisha Bryden, 36, of Crooked River Ranch, and Jeremiah Degraw, 37 of Modesto, California, were removed from the Expedition without incident, as was Bryden’s young daughter, Davis said.

The investigation determined that Bryden, Westover and Patteeuw lived in a home in the 12000 block of Southwest Cinder Drive in Crooked River Ranch, on the Jefferson County side of the large subdivision that straddles the Jefferson-Deschutes county line.

Around 9 p.m. Thursday, Westover and Patteeuw said they were in their bedroom, which they rent from Bryden, when Bryden and Degraw (who they did not know) entered their room uninvited, armed with handguns, and accused them of stealing from Bryden, Davis said.

They said Degraw began beating Westover with a leather sap, a weapon that’s a leather sleeve filled with lead pellets. Bryden then grabbed Westover by her hair and dragged her from the room, and Degraw began hitting Patteeuw with the sap, Davis said.

After the assault, the man and woman’s hands and feet were bound with plastic “zip ties” and they were assaulted further by Bryden and Degraw for more than an hour, according to Davis.

They were then loaded into the SUV at gunpoint, where they were threatened several times that they would be killed. Bryden’s young daughter witnessed those events, Davis said.

As the vehicle drove through the area, the couple was “terrorized and threatened to be killed if they did not provide repayment for items they were accused of stealing from Bryden,” Davis said in a news release. Degraw also used a folding knife to cut off portions of Westover’s hair to further threaten her, as they were ordered to contact friends and relatives to wire-order money for the repayment, the lieutenant said.

The suspects eventually drove the pair to Sisters, where they rented a room at the Sisters Motor Lodge, Davis said. He said the zip ties were removed from their feet so they could walk into the room, but their hands remained bound, and they were threatened not to run or they would be further harmed..

The four spent the night at the motel and on Friday morning began to drive toward Eugene, until the suspects determined they had no tire chains and would be unable to cross the pass without them, Davis said.

On Friday afternoon, Bryden and Degraw decided to release Westover and Patteeuw after they were unable to extract money from them, Davis said.

The pair were ordered to go into the Sisters Mainline Station and “create a scene, as though they were having an argument, so Bryden and Degraw could get away,” Davis wrote. Once inside the stor, Patteeuw was able to call 911 and report they had been kidnapped.

The pair was contacted by deputies and later taken by Sisters-Camp Sherman Fire medics to St. Charles Bend, where they were treated for non-life-threatening injuries and later released, Davis said.

Sheriff’s detectives interviewed all involved and served search warrants at the Crooked River Ranch home and Sisters motel, where evidence of the crimes was found, Davis said. Detectives from OSP and the Central Oregon Drug Enforcement team assisted in the investigation, while Jefferson county sheriff’s deputies and OSP troopers assisted in the search of the CRR home.

Bryden and Degraw were booked into the Deschutes County Jail on charges including two counts each of first-degree kidnapping, robbery, first- and fourth-degree assault, coercion, unlawful use of a weapon, menacing and conspiracy. They remained held late Saturday on $710,000 bail each.

Bryden’s daughter was taken into protective custody by the Oregon Department of Human Services, Davis said.

The lieutenant said the sheriff’s office will work with the Jefferson County District Attorney’s Office for review of applicable charges for crimes committed in that county.

The Deschutes County Sheriff’s Office asked that any witnesses to the incident call the non-emergency dispatch number at 541-693-6911 to provide a statement.